50, weight loss. Sagging jowls and pulsing artery - can this be treated? (Photos)

Question

I am 50 years old, lost weight and skin laxity in my face. I also have a vusible artery in my cheek that pulses! Is there any safe procedure to fix my sagging jowels that is safe with this artery or do i have to treat the artery itself?

Mehmet Ozdemir, MD · Answer

We have reviewed your photos. You may be a candidate for facelift surgery. An in-person consultation is required to assess the visible artery and determine the safest approach.

Randall O. Craft, MD · Answer

A visible pulsing vessel in the cheek is almost always the facial artery or one of its branches, which runs exactly where you are describing, and it becomes visible after weight loss because the fat that covered it is gone. It does not need treatment and it does not prevent surgery. Every facelift surgeon operates around it; it is a landmark, not an obstacle. The jowls after weight loss are a different issue and are treated with the operation that addresses the layer that dropped, which at 50 is a facelift with neck treatment and, in most weight-loss patients, fat grafting to replace what was lost in the cheek. A "mini" lift tends to under-treat exactly this situation. If the vessel bothers you cosmetically on its own, that is a separate conversation after the lift, when the cheek has been repositioned and it may no longer show. Mention it at consultation and have the surgeon examine it; occasionally a pulsing lump that is not in the facial artery's path deserves an ultrasound before anyone operates.

50, weight loss. Sagging jowls and pulsing artery - can this be treated? (Photos)

Answers (2)

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